NEW YORK (AP) — More than 130 additional court files were unsealed Friday in a lawsuit involving Jeffrey Epstein, providing yet more detail about the late millionaire financier’s sexual abuse of underage girls and interactions with celebrities.
The latest round of documents included excerpts of testimony from people who worked for Epstein, copies of phone messages he received — including one from Harvey Weinstein — and lots of legal memos from lawyers discussing who could potentially have been called as a witness if the lawsuit ever went to trial.
No blockbuster revelations were apparent. Lots of the records covered material that has been the subject of many past news stories about Epstein and his victims. But like other documents previously made public in lawsuits related to Epstein, they provide a window into the rarified world he inhabited.
The records are all related to a defamation lawsuit that one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, filed in 2015 against the millionaire’s girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was accused by multiple women of helping Epstein recruit underage victims. The suit was settled in 2017. Maxwell was later prosecuted and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Later in 2019, Epstein would be dead by suicide, found in a jail cell after he was arrested in July that year on sex trafficking charges. It would be two more years before a jury in New York agreed that Maxwell helped Epstein recruit and groom teenage girls for sexual abuse and sometimes joined in the abuse.
